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You are here: Home / Women / Do Right Woman: Aretha Franklin

Do Right Woman: Aretha Franklin

August 19th, 2018 by Sallie Bingham in Women Leave a Comment

Aretha Franklin, 1968

Publicity photo of Aretha Franklin from Billboard magazine, 17 February 1968.

On Thursday, August 16, 2018, Aretha Franklin died in her Detroit home. No one can appreciate the depth of her influence as clearly as those women, like me, who came of age in the Feminist Movement in the late 1960’s, lifted up, jostled, delighted, inspired by her singing:

“Do Right Woman …Do Right” Man”
“You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman”
“Chain of Fools”
“Respect”

The pop music—the Top One Hundreds—I’d grown up on didn’t use terms like “Respect” or register the idea that for a woman to “do right,” her man needs to do right, too.

Winner of 18 Grammys, singer at both Dr. Martin Luther King’s funeral in 1968 and Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009, Aretha spanned generations and movements and gave them both her riotous, ringing voice.

No one can appreciate the depth of Aretha Franklin's influence as clearly as women, like me, who came of age in the Feminist Movement in the late 1960's.

A friend called her “A soundtrack for the sixties,” her most important contribution. She also brought Gospel into the mainstream, based in the Baptist church where her father was the pastor. The dark underside of her story—she was pregnant at twelve for the first time, for the second time, at fourteen—lent rage and depth to her voice. She would never be a victim, in her own eyes or in ours.

Hearing of her going into Hospice two days ago, my group of five women friends, all from different places, stages and times, recalled what hearing her singing had meant to them. One of us was in tears. In addition to everything else we hold in common—our work, our community, our friends—we hold the powerful introduction into our liberation as women that Aretha gave us so freely, so abundantly, from the bottom of her heart and soul.

My birth as a liberated woman happened when I was driving, alone, from Kentucky to the Adirondacks to spend time at Blue Mountain, a blessed retreat for artists and writers who are activists.

I’d never driven so far alone before and this was long before GPSes, so with my big map spread out on the seat next to me, I was venturing into unknown territory and my first sighting of the Great Lakes. Later I would get lost, taking an ill-advised late afternoon walk in the fierce mountains of the Adirondack Park, and both ventures were inspired and supported by the songs Aretha was singing on the radio.

She sang for me as she sang for all of us, including six white, prosperous, middle-aged women who remember the moment when her voice broke some of our chains.

[For more on this time in my life, please see my post, Something Changes in Me… Music and Revolution. And for more on Aretha, including lots of great photos, please see The New York Times’ obituary.]

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In Women Music

A long and fruitful career as a writer began in 1960 with the publication of Sallie Bingham's novel, After Such Knowledge. This was followed by 15 collections of short stories in addition to novels, memoirs and plays, as well as the 2020 biography The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke.

Her latest book, Taken by the Shawnee, is a work of historical fiction published by Turtle Point Press in June of 2024. Her previous memoir, Little Brother, was published by Sarabande Books in 2022. Her short story, "What I Learned From Fat Annie" won the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize in 2023 and the story "How Daddy Lost His Ear," from her forthcoming short story collection How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories (September 23, 2025), received second prize in the 2023 Sean O’Faolain Short Story Competition.

She is an active and involved feminist, working for women’s empowerment, who founded the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which gives grants to Kentucky artists and writers who are feminists, The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture at Duke University, and the Women’s Project and Productions in New York City. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sallie's complete biography is available here.

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Watch Sallie

Taken By The Shawnee

Taken By The Shawnee

July 6th, 2025
Sallie Bingham introduces and reads from her latest work, Taken by the Shawnee.
Visiting Linda Stein

Visiting Linda Stein

March 3rd, 2025
Back on October 28th, 2008, I visited artist Linda Stein's studio in New York City and tried on a few of her handmade suits of armor.

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Rebecca Reynolds & Salie Bingham at SOMOS

Rebecca Reynolds & Salie Bingham at SOMOS

November 8th, 2024
This event was recorded November 1, 2024 in Taos, NM at SOMOS Salon & Bookshop by KCEI Radio, Red River/Taos and broadcast on November 8, 2024.
Taken by the Shawnee Reading

Taken by the Shawnee Reading

September 1st, 2024
This reading took place at The Church of the Holy Faith in Santa Fe, New Mexico in August of 2024.

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Sallie Bingham's latest is a captivating account of ancestor's ordeal
Pasatiempo, The Santa Fe New Mexican

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